Pruning the Bodhi Tree

by Hubbard, Jamie; Swanson, Paul L.

• ISBN13: 9780824819491
• ISBN10: 0824819497
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of Hawaii Pr

Summary

What is Buddhism? According to Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, the answer lies in neither Ch¿an nor Zen; in neither the Kyoto school of philosophy nor the non-duality taught in the Vimalakirti Sutra. Hakamaya contends that ¿criticism alone is Buddhism.¿ This volume introduces and analyzes the ideas of ¿critical Buddhism¿ in relation to the targets of its critique and situates those ideas in the context of current discussions of postmodern academic scholarship, the separation of the disinterested scholar and committed religious practitioner, and the place of social activism within the academy. Essays critical of the received traditions of Buddhist thought¿many never before translated¿are presented and then countered by the work of respected scholars, both Japanese and Western, who take contrary positions.

Table of Contents

Introduction
List of Contributors
Source Credits
Bibliographic and Linguistic Conventions
Why They Say Zen Is Not Buddhism : Recent Japanese Critiques of Buddha-Nature	p. 3
Critical Buddhism and Returning to the Sources	p. 30
Critical Philosophy versus Topical Philosophy	p. 56
Topophobia	p. 81
Scholarship as Criticism	p. 113
The Limits of Criticism	p. 145
Comments on Critical Buddhism	p. 161
The Doctrine of Tathagata-garbha Is Not Buddhist	p. 165
The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature is Impeccably Buddhist	p. 174
The Idea of Dhatu-vada in Yogacara and Tathagata-garbha Texts	p. 193
A Critical Exchange on the Idea of Dhatu-vada	p. 205
The Core Elements of Indian Buddhism Introduced into Tibet: A Contrast with Japanese Buddhism	p. 220
The Meaning of "Zen"	p. 242
Critical Buddhism and Dogen's Shobogenzo: The Debate over the 75-Fascicle and 12-Fascicle Texts	p. 251
Is Critical Buddhism Really Critical?	p. 286
Metaphysics, Suffering, and Liberation: The Debate between Two Buddhisms	p. 298
Thoughts on Dhatu-vada and Recent Trends in Buddhist Studies	p. 314
A Reexamination of Critical Buddhism	p. 321
Thoughts on the Ideological Background of Social Discrimination	p. 339
Buddhism and the Kami: Against Japanism	p. 356
Tendai Hongaku Doctrine and Japan's Ethnocentric Turn	p. 374
The Lotus Sutra and Japanese Culture	p. 388
Notes	p. 407
Bibliography	p. 491
Index	p. 501
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